Andreas Grünschloß

Religionswissenschaft als Welt-Theologie

Wilfred Cantwell Smiths interreligiöse Hermeneutik

(FSÖTh 71) Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994 (pp.359f)

Summary

Wilfred
Cantwell Smith, known as the 'father' of the pluralist model in Angloamerican
theology, has made a substantial contribution to interreligious hermeneutics,
widely unknown in German theology and
Religionswissenschaft
today. The author of this book is presenting a comprehensive reconstruction of
Smith's oeuvre on all academic levels: Islamic studies, religious
studies/comparative religion, and Christian theology.

(1)
The
biographical context and work-historical background of Smith's academic
achievements is portrayed in
chapter
one
.
The development of his religio-scientific thinking can be traced through the
academic institutions which he always shaped as an influential chairperson
(McGill, Harvard, Dalhousie). Many of Smith's ideas on interreligious
hermeneutics were already present in the topics of the courses he gave (cf.
321ff), and have become part of the institutional policy of the respective
academic units, as can be demonstrated by the author's archival research.
Following his life and work through time, this introductory overview on Smith's
thought, its major shifts and publications, can be schematically summarized in
a work-historical "bio-graph" (66), and a systematic-chronological overview of
his publications (326ff).

The
following chapters are organized around the three major academic areas of
Smith's work, and follow the chronological development of his academic emphasis.

(2)
First,
chapter
two
analyzes Smith's contribution to
Islamic
studies
.
Starting
with
the studies on modern Islam in India, a major epistemological shift in his
thinking can be identified: from the socio-historical perspective on religious
and political developments to an empathetic understanding of the inner faith of
Muslims. His informants were mostly representatives of a modernist Islam,
dissatisfied with traditional legal orthodoxy, and inspired to reform their own
tradition in the light of modern values, and by means of a more 'mystical'
approach to theology. Smith not only describes this development, but he takes
part with a kind of 'theology from outside', which offers a reconstruction of
Islam as centered around personal
faith.
With an almost mystical immediacy -- Smith is influenced by Islamic mysticism
-- he tries to trace traditional stratifications in Islam back to their primal
function for personal faith. Therefore, his philological studies on
islâm,
îmân, tasdîq, arkân, sharî'a
and
igtihâd
are critically validated within the context of current Islamic studies. For
Smith, however, the faith of the individual person is the primal thing in Islam
(as in all religion); everything else is a mode of 'reification' and lifeless
structuralism (Islamic law, beliefs, etc.). Thus, in his Islamic studies one
can find important groundwork for the later comparative studies on religion,
faith, and belief. Although Smith, as a participant
engagé
'from outside', appears as "a true friend of the Islamic world", his
modern-individualistic and hidden mystic bias has led him to underestimate the
traditional consensus and socio-political impetus of Islam, and it has led him
to overestimate the possibilities of enlightened Muslims to modernize Islam as
an organized religion.

(3)Chapter
three
is focussed on Smith's
Religionswissenschaft.
In the beginning, his
program
for religious studies is analyzed: his dialogic and personalistic method with
its interreligious verification principle, as well as the thesis that
comparative religion is the locus where mankind's variegated religiosity
becomes self-conscious. It seems, however, rather questionable whether Smith's
'program' is actually leading to a 'thick description' of religious phemomena:
on the contrary, one can detect an inherent inclination towards abstraction.
This suspicion is proved through a close examination of his
Begriffsstudien
on "religion", "faith", and "belief" (ME, BH, FB). Apart from the fact that ME
has already become a "modern classic" in
Religionswissenschaft,
the bipolar distinction between "cumulative tradition" and "personal faith"
does not prove itself useful as an alternative concept for what has
traditionally been called 'religion'. As a close examination of Smith's
faith-terminology
can show, the
normative
(theological) undercurrent
is
too heavy for a descriptive concept in religious studies. In coherence with his
studies on the Islamic concept of faith, Smith always tries to isolate a single
'true meaning' of faith within the flux of different religious traditions:
immediate personal piety over against fixed beliefs and crystallized traditions.
Faith
is the core of 'religion', he tries to show with acribic philological details.
However, it can be demonstrated that much of this thesis is already presupposed
in Smith's own
normative
scheme
,
using the religio-historical 'material' for a demonstration in the style of a
phenomenology-of-religion approach. Despite his attempt to allow genuine
pluralism,
Smith can even be accused to have formulated a new 'meta-concept' of religion
("faith"), which is then used in a quite inclusivistic manner in relation to,
for example, Buddhism (183ff). This critical thesis can be backed up
systematically by the author's "synthetic reconstruction of some normative
presuppositions in Smith's 'pistology'" (194ff), revealing not only a
'Cambridge-connection' (via J.Oman and H.H.Farmer) to Schleiermacher's concept
of
Frömmigkeit,
but also a strong idealistic strand in Smith's
pistology:
the reconstruction of human religiousness in the 'transcendental' realm of
glaubender
Glaube
-- over against specific 'categorial forms'. Given this analysis, the
investigation is carried further to Smith's universal-historical constructions,
his interpersonal criterion of truth, his assessment of religious symbolism,
and his interpretation of sacred scripture(s). -- All in all, Smith's
"comparative religion" has certainly produced important insights in
Religionswissenschaft:
the 'shaky' character of the western concept 'religion', the interrelationship
of religious traditions, the epistemological role of 'personal friendship',
ethical responsibilities in religious studies, etc. It has failed, however, to
establish convincingly an alternative paradigm within the discipline (as
originally planned).

(4)
Chapter four
,
finally, concentrates on Smith's
theological
publications. It starts with an examination of his early missiological essays,
which have been quite innovative within missiological thinking, because they
offer an interesting perspective on missiology as a way of intercultural and
interreligious hermeneutics within the context of religious pluralism. Smith
appears -- already in this phase (1960-70) -- as a theological
pluralist,
seeing God at work "redemptively" in all traditions of mankind.
From this position it is consequent for Smith to opt for a "world
theology", in which all religious traditions are not just objects of
thought, but take part as constructive
subjects.
Since Smith's 'world-theological' aspirations rest completely on his
comparative concept of "faith", a similar strand towards
abstraction and towards relativizing concrete religious traditions can be
detected. Therefore, Smith's vision is not only in danger to run against the
current ecumenical emphasis on concrete inculturation and social
contextualization,
it is also in danger of moving behind the categorial forms of any religious
tradition. Theologically speaking, this reproach culminates in Smith's attempt
to disengage the
sola
fide
from its christological basis, an attempt which leaves Christ merely as a
perspectively representational figure, and which preserves general
"faith"; in a kind of meta-pietistic conserve. Against such
aspirations one will have to realize that the differing truth-claims and
concrete beliefs of religious traditions are playing a more important role than
Smith is ready to admit. -- Despite these criticisms, Smith has made a
convincing case for a
dialogical
Christian theology
,
which is actually reckoning with new empirical knowledge in the process of
personal encounters
with
the 'face' of the religiously other, and which does not merely deduce instant
perspectives
about
the other from a self-sufficient 'own' tradition.